Marissa Meyer - Scarlet

“Your senses are remarkable, Alpha. Without doubt, one of our best.” He tapped at his chair, before pushing himself up. “And your strength of character is unequaled. Your loyalty. Your willingness to make sacrifices. I’m sure none of my other men would have gone to the lengths you did to obtain information from Miss Benoit, gone so above the call of duty. That is precisely why I’ve chosen you to lead tomorrow’s attack.”

Jael paced to the row of shelves and ran a finger along them, dust collecting pale and gray against his skin. Ze’ev kept his expression blank, trying not to think what sacrifices Jael thought he had made, so far above the call of duty.

But she was there in his mind. The pad of her thumb brushing against his scars. Her arms wrapping around his neck.

He swallowed hard. Every muscle drew tight against his bones in an effort to block out the memory.

“Now it is only a question of what to do with the girl. How frustrating that we finally find someone who might lead us closer to Princess Selene, just when we no longer have use of the information.”

Ze’ev’s fingernails bit into his palms. Frustrating seemed laughable. If Her Majesty had changed her focus away from the princess three weeks ago, Scarlet and her grandmother never would have been involved in any of it.

And he never would have known the difference.

A clamp squeezed in on his chest.

“But I am optimistic,” Jael continued, speaking absently. “We may still find a use for the girl, if she can persuade her grandmother to talk. The madame tries to play at ignorance, but she knows why she is able to resist control. I’m sure of it.” He fidgeted with the cuff of his sleeve. “Which do you suppose will be more important to the old lady? Her granddaughter’s life, or her own secrets?”

Ze’ev had no response.

“I guess we will see,” said Jael, returning to his desk. “At least now I’ll have some power over her.” His lips parted, showing perfect white teeth in a pleasant smile. “You still have not answered my question, Alpha. Will you accept the role of leading our most important battle in the European Federation?”

Ze’ev’s lungs burned. He wanted to ask more, to know more—about Scarlet, her grandmother, what Jael would do to her.

But the questions would not be acceptable. His mission was complete. He no longer had any tie to Mademoiselle Benoit.

He clasped a fist to his chest. “Of course, Master Jael. It would be an honor.”

“Good.” Opening a drawer, Jael pulled out a plain white box and slid it across the desk. “On that, we’ve just received this shipment of ID chips from the Paris quarantines. I hope it won’t be too out of your way to take them down for wiping and reprogramming? I want them to be ready for the new recruits I expect to arrive tomorrow morning.” He tilted back in his chair. “We will want as many soldiers available as we can manage. It is imperative that the people of Earth be too terrified to even consider fighting back.”

Cinder peered out the cockpit window at a crop of leafy plants. The fields stretched out in every direction, the view of the flat horizon broken only by a stone farmhouse nearly a mile away.

A house. A lot of vegetables. And a giant spaceship.

“This isn’t conspicuous at all.”

“At least we’re in the middle of nowhere,” said Thorne, peeling himself out of the pilot seat and sliding on his leather jacket. “If anyone calls the police, it will take them a while to get here.”

“Unless they’re already on their way,” Cinder muttered. Her heart had been drumming throughout their eons-long descent down to Earth, her brain skimming over a thousand different fates that could await them. Though she’d kept up the ridiculous chanting as long as she could, they still had no way of knowing how effective she was being, and she still had the sinking feeling that her attempts to disguise their ship using Lunar magic were pathetically futile. She couldn’t understand how she could manipulate radars and radio waves with nothing but her own muddled thoughts.

Nevertheless—the fact remained that no one had discovered them in space, and so far their luck was holding. Benoit Farms and Gardens appeared to be wholly deserted.

The ramp began to lower off the cargo bay and Iko chirped, “You two go off and have fun now. I’ll be sitting here, by myself, all alone, checking for radar interference and running diagnostics. It’s going to be fantastic. ”

“You’re getting really good at your sarcasm,” said Cinder, joining Thorne at the top of the ramp as it smashed a very fine row of hearty foliage.

Thorne squinted at the glare on his portscreen. “Bingo,” he said, pointing at the two-story house that had to be old enough to have survived the Fourth World War. “She’s here.”

“Bring me back a souvenir!” Iko yelled as Thorne stomped down into the field. The ground was soggy from a recent watering and mud clung to the hem of his pants as he cut through the crop, making his own direct route to the house.

Cinder followed, drinking in the wide-open farmland and the fresh air, so sweet after being locked up inside the Rampion’s recycled oxygen. Even with her audio interface turned off, it was the deepest silence she’d ever experienced. “It’s so quiet here.”

“Creepy, isn’t it? I don’t know how people can stand it.”

“I think it’s kind of nice.”

“Yeah, like a morgue is nice.”

A cluster of smaller buildings were thrown haphazardly throughout the fields: a barn, a chicken coop, a shed, a hangar big enough to house a number of hovers or even a spaceship, though not one as big as the Rampion.

Cinder drew up short when she spotted it. She frowned, stretching for the gossamer memory that seemed to recognize the hangar. “Wait.”

Thorne turned back to her. “Did you see someone?”

Without answering, she changed direction, squishing through the mud. Thorne trailed after her, silent as Cinder shoved open the hangar’s door.

“I’m not sure that breaking into Michelle Benoit’s outbuildings is the best way to introduce ourselves.”

Cinder glanced back, scanning the house’s empty windows. “I need to see something,” she said, and stepped inside. “Lights, on.”

The lights flickered to life and she gasped at the sight before her. Tools and parts, screws and bolts, clothes and grimy shop rags, all flung haphazardly around the space. Every cabinet hung open, every storage crate and toolbox had been tipped over. The glossy white floor could hardly be seen beneath the mess.

On the other side of the hangar, a small delivery ship sat with its back window busted out. Shards of glass glittered beneath the blazing lights. The hangar smelled of spilled fuel and toxic fumes, and a little bit like Cinder’s market booth.

“What a sty,” said Thorne, disgusted. “I’m not sure I can trust a pilot with such little respect for her ship.”

Cinder ignored him, busy sending her scanner over the shelves and walls. Despite the distraction of the chaos, her brain-machine interface was picking up on something. A general impression of familiarity, tinges of a long-lost memory. The way the sun angled in from the door. The combined smells of machinery and manure. The crisscrossed pattern of the exposed trusses.

She paced across the concrete, crunching through the debris. She moved slowly, lest the ghost of familiarity vanish.

“Uh, Cinder,” said Thorne, glancing back toward the farm. “What are we doing in here?”

“Looking for something.”

“In this mess? Good luck with that.”

She found a small plot of empty concrete and stalled, thinking. Examining. Knowing she’d been there before. In a dream, in a daze.